{"id":243335,"date":"2026-04-23T15:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/243335\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:02:07","slug":"sports-ad-income-epic-universe-demand-lift-comcast-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/243335\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports ad income, Epic Universe demand lift Comcast revenue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cRobust consumer demand\u201d for Epic Universe<\/a> theme park helped propel revenue of Comcast\u2019s<\/a> content and experience group by 24.2% for its first financial quarter, executives said Thursday.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s global theme parks, including the attractions at Universal Orlando<\/a>, made $2.44 billion in the January-March 2026 period, up from $1.88 billion in the same quarter of 2025. Epic opened to the public in May 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrlando continues to perform extremely well with Epic driving strong resort attendance and higher per cap spending,\u201d Mike Cavanaugh<\/a>, Co-CEO of Comcast, said during a conference call with market analysts.<\/p>\n

The 21.6% increase in operating expenses was attributed primarily to operating costs ahead of Epic\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n

Attendance figures and individual park results were not announced. The idea of expansion at Epic was not directly addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love that business, and we\u2019ll allocate, you know, recycle the capital they create back into the business over time to keep growing that business and creating value above our cost of capital,\u201d Cavanaugh said.<\/p>\n

Universal\u2019s park in the UK is progressing through planning approvals \u201cas site stabilization begins,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At Universal Studios Japan<\/a> in Osaka, Comcast is \u201cseeing some impact from China-related inbound travel trends, which is putting pressure on attendance,\u201d said Jason Armstrong<\/a>, chief financial officer.<\/p>\n

Domestically, \u201cwe haven\u2019t yet seen any significant impact in the parks business caused by higher oil,\u201d Cavanaugh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat does not mean that it may not happen, depending on the duration of the effect on price of gas and the like and plane airline tickets and so forth,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what the coming quarters look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

A nod to the \u201990s: Flashing back with Orlando theme parks<\/a><\/p>\n

Comcast\u2019s business includes Orlando-based Universal Destinations & Experiences<\/a>, as well as NBC<\/a> and Telemundo<\/a> broadcasters, Peacock<\/a> streaming services, film studios as well as broadband, wireless and satellite providers.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s conference call touted the performance of its media outlets during a \u201cLegendary February\u201d in which it aired the Winter Olympics<\/a>, Super Bowl<\/a> and NBA All-Star Game<\/a>. Cavanaugh said it had record advertising sales of about $2 billion in 17 days, which helped \u201caccelerate momentum\u201d at Peacock, which added 2 million subscribers in the quarter.<\/p>\n

The streamer is on track to reach profitability for the first time next quarter, he said.<\/p>\n

Media revenue for the quarter was $7.28 billion, a year-to-year increase of 60%. Comcast\u2019s overall revenue for the quarter was $31.46 billion, an increase of 5.3%.<\/p>\n

dbevil@orlandsentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cRobust consumer demand\u201d for Epic Universe theme park helped propel revenue of Comcast\u2019s content and experience group by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,740,104,6113,28,114,1335,139,141,140,109,76686,76687,76688,76689,2411,106,1316,107,20047,3434],"class_list":{"0":"post-243335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-epic-universe","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-news","18":"tag-social","19":"tag-social-business","20":"tag-social-entertainment","21":"tag-social-theme-parks","22":"tag-social-travel","23":"tag-theme-parks","24":"tag-things-to-do","25":"tag-tourism","26":"tag-travel","27":"tag-tv-and-streaming","28":"tag-universal-orlando"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}